Watson Has A Secret
by Kay Griffen
Summary: The Study In Scarlet with a Twist. Watson has a secret. Remember, deceit is impossible when Holmes is around, so what happens?
1. Prologue

Author's Note-I do not own these characters. It is all my fault for making this monstrosity of a Conan Doyle Story. :) Anyway, this is Study In Scarlet with a twist. Watson has a secret. And it is told in Wasons POV. I dont know how long this will be.

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_**Prologue- Journal Entry**_

I am alone. That is what keeps me awake at night, plus the fact that I wish not to see people die in my nightmares. I wish for an apartment with a fellow-lodger. Just having someone near me would help. But not too near, or else my secret will not be a secret anymore. It was almost . . . easier in the army. I had a job to do, save as many lives as I could. Now I am as aimless as I could be in London, surrounded by people.

I am lonely. I wish I could talk to someone, someone who knows me, the real me, so I don't have to pretend anymore.

But there is no real me. _This _is the real me.


	2. Meeting Sherlock Holmes

A/N- I got reviews!!! Yay! Thank you!

Anyway, major changes. I want to keep most of the dialogue though. I will have to add more dialogue later . . .

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Chapter 1

It is March. For me, March is a depressing month, still cold and blustery for a spring month. Also, during this time of year, my mind turns back to the past. I still remember the years we spent with the others near the Thames. My brother, Horace, and I were living on the streets with a small band of other children. Our parents had been – Why do I have to write it down? Who is going to read my private diary? _I_ know what I am talking about.

Anyway, March is not a good month for me. This year, though, it was March when I finally landed on the soil of my home of England. I saw people that now, looked much too pale. I had not seen my reflection in weeks, but I knew that I probably no longer looked like an Englishman. As all the passengers from the boat unloaded, I stood with my small bag on the Portsmouth jetty, looking back at the bustle on the boat. I had some money in my pocket now, but I had nowhere to go. I turned around, and saw the families reuniting. I smiled, but it was a bittersweet smile. I remembered when my brother had come home that morning in May. I was waiting on the dock and I watched the boat pull in. Horace had come down the ramp and we had hugged. He had seemed like he did not want to let go of me. But finally, he released me and smiled. I remember the smile especially. It reminded me of Father's smile.

I returned to the present and turned to find a cab. By the time I entered London, I was tired enough to simply stumble out and fall asleep on the side of the street. I directed the cabman to the Strand, and found a private hotel. That night I simply collapsed on the bed in my clothes.

The next morning, I woke up with a start at dawn, which was actually later than I was used to in the army. I was still tired, but could not back to sleep. I finally pulled myself out of bed and found a slightly better looking jacket in my bag. I wandered down to the street and walked as long as my leg felt all right. I had no idea where I was going, but needed to move about on the quite solid land. It had been a long journey on the boat I walked into a small restaurant to find some lunch. After which I found a place to sit and simply watched people walk by. The weak sun came down in wafts of warm air. Women were helped out of carriages, and servant men fawned and scraped for their mistresses. I saw a couple of men in my profession hurry into patient's houses. Suddenly, life in London seemed . . . empty. There was no one needing my help, needing _me_. In the army, I was always needed; someone always needed a pair of hands somewhere. I needed something, _anything_ to distract me from these thoughts. My people were still down there, the people I saved, or had to watch die.

I had been in London for a few weeks and I was—not miserable, but I was not happy. And one morning, I counted my money and found that I needed to make a major adjustment in my living style. I could not face moving to the country, so I decided to stay in London. But, if I was to stay in the great city, I would have to go halves with someone. That brought up additional problems, but almost every night, I could not get a full nights rest. I saw the faces of my people at night. Even though I like the country and I would be alone there, perhaps it's just that reason. I would be alone. I need to have people around me. Otherwise the nightmares come back.

So I wandered to a bar a couple of streets over. I actually like the taste of the beer there, and again, the money slipped through my fingers too fast there. I was sitting at the bar when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Pain spiked through my arm, and I turned around. Stamford! He had been in a class below me in college, and we had worked together before I went into the army, and I grinned in delight. A friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a happy sight indeed! He seemed to be thinner, but his wild brown hair and smiling brown eyes were as I remembered. I asked him to lunch at the Holborn, and we caught a hansom.

"Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?" he asked in wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets. "You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut." I glanced at him and decided to give him a shortened version of my stay in India and Afghanistan. By the time we had gotten out of the hansom outside the restaurant, I had finished.

"Poor devil!" he said as we went through the doors."What are you up to now?"

"Looking for lodgings," I say without thinking. Oh, well, might as well. "Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price."

"That's a strange thing," remarked my companion; "you are the second man today that has used that expression to me." I hear this with a certain thrill of apprehension.

"And who was the first?" I asked. My voice came out calm.

"A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse." He replied with a smile.

As we sat down, I said, "If he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone." I had made it without _too_ much trouble in the army where tents were the closest thing to privacy you got. So how hard could sharing rooms in the heart of London be?

Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass. "You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet," he said; "perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion."

"Why, what is there against him?" My curiosity was piqued. I put down my glass.

"Oh, I didn't say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas -- an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough." Stamford looked away. I narrowed my eyes. Something was going on here . . .

"A medical student, I suppose?" I asked.

"No – I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the way knowledge which would astonish his professors."

"Did you never ask him what he was going in for?" I asked.

"No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him." I mused to myself, "Sounds like a perfect roommate."

"I should like to meet him," I said. "If I am to lodge with anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I meet this friend of yours?"

"He is sure to be at the laboratory," returned my companion. "He either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning to night. If you like, we shall drive round together after luncheon."

"Certainly," I answered, and the conversation drifted away into more reminisces of army days. Stamford had never seen death. And I was faced with the same problems that my brother must have had when sending letters home. How much you can really say.

As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn, Stamford gave me a little more information about the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow-lodger.

"You mustn't blame me if you don't get on with him," he said; "I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold me responsible."

"If we don't get on it will be easy to part company," I answered. "It seems to me, Stamford," I added, looking hard at my companion, "that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow's temper so formidable, or what is it? Don't be mealy-mouthed about it."

"It is not easy to express the inexpressible," he answered with a laugh. "Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes -- it approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge."

"Very right too."

"Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape."

"Beating the subjects!" That is something that I did not expect.

"Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes." He shivered. I raised my eyebrows.

"And yet you say he is not a medical student?"

"No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are, and you must form your own impressions about him." As he spoke, we entered the hospital. It was familiar to me, and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak black stone staircase and walked down the long corridor of white with occasional tan doors. Near the further end a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory. How familiar this place seems, and yet I know how many of the people never get to see it. I am happy that it _is_ so familiar though, I have been gone for what seems like forever.

This was a huge chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with test-tubes and Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames. The huge windows on one side of the hall highlighted the lone student with a bright halo. At the sound of our steps he glanced around and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. "I've found it! I've found it," he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a test-tube in his hand. "I have found a reagent which is precipitated by hemoglobin, and by nothing else." Had he discovered a gold mine, greater delight could not have shone upon his face. He was tall and quite lean. His gray eyes seemed to rake over me, and I realize maybe this was not a good idea after all. Obviously, it was not a good idea _before_, but now . . .

"Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Stamford, introducing us.

"How are you?" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. His gray eyes seemed to see through me, and I felt uneasiness in my gut. "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."

"How on earth did you know that?" I asked in astonishment. Perhaps I should leave, if he knows so much about me already. This seems more and more like a bad idea.

"Never mind," said he, chuckling to himself. "The question now is about hemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?"

"It is interesting, chemically, no doubt," I answered, "but practically ----" I was about to say that for practical uses, it could be very useful. But he cut me off.

"Why, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains? Come over here now!" He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been working. I resisted for a moment, and then let him pull me."Let us have some fresh blood," he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. "Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a liter of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction." As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany color, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar. I stared in amazement. Had he thought of this on his own?

"Ha! Ha!" he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a child. "What do you think of that?" He looked to me for my reaction.

"It seems to be a very delicate test," I remarked.

"Beautiful! Beautiful! The old Guiacum test was very clumsy and uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty of their crimes."

"Indeed!" I murmured.

"Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them. Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes' test, and there will no longer be any difficulty."

His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination. I have a sudden vision of another person bowing to a theater crowd, a tall, blond-haired boy from my childhood. I retreat from the past and return to the present. I see his eyes on me, waiting for me to say something.

"You are to be congratulated," I remarked, surprised at his enthusiasm. Would God that I could be so happy about something.

"There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it would have been decisive."

"You seem to be a walking calendar of crime," said Stamford with a laugh. "You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the `Police News of the Past.'" I jumped at his voice; I forgotten he was there.

"Very interesting reading it might be made, too," remarked Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger. "I have to be careful," he continued, turning to me with a smile, "for I dabble with poisons a good deal." He held out his hand as he spoke, and I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster, and discolored with strong acids. Otherwise, it was a pale hand, scars barely showing up.

"We came here on business," said Stamford, sitting down on a high three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his foot. "My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better bring you together."

Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me. Good, that guess that I had been in Afghanistan was perhaps just that, a guess. Though how he knew, I have no idea. "I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street," he said, "which would suit us down to the ground. You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?"

"I always smoke `ship's' myself," I answered. Mind the smell? It always brought back pleasant memories of my father, when I was quite young.

"That's good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?"

"By no means."

"Let me see -- what are my other shortcomings. I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right. What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together."

I laughed at this cross-examination. "I keep a bull pup," I said, "and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present."

"Do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?" he asked, anxiously. It actually mattered to him what I thought.

"It depends on the player," I answered. "A well-played violin is a treat for the gods -- a badly-played one ----"

"Oh, that's all right," he cried, with a merry laugh. Hmm. "I think we may consider the thing as settled -- that is, if the rooms are agreeable to you."

"When shall we see them?" I might as well. No use in backing out now.

"Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we'll go together and settle everything," he answered.

"All right -- noon exactly," said I, shaking his hand.

We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards my hotel.

"By the way," I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford, "how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?" If he known that about me, then what else did he know?

My companion smiled an mysterious smile. "That's just his little peculiarity," he said. "A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out." Uh-oh. Maybe I should cancel. But my mystery-loving side rescues me.

"Oh! A mystery is it?" I cried, rubbing my hands. "This is very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. `The proper study of mankind is man,' you know."

"You must study him, then," Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye. "You'll find him a knotty problem, though. I'll wager he learns more about you than you about him. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," I answered, and strolled on to my hotel. I sincerely hoped that my new fellow-lodger had merely guessed at me newly from Afghanistan. Maybe I was more tan than I thought . . . I'd have to find a mirror . . .


	3. Burning Down the Lab

**Chapter 2**

When I woke up the next morning, I thought of so many of the men that would never come back home, never wake up again and greet the new day. I forced the thoughts back before I could reflect any further. Then I went hunting for a mirror, or at least a reflective surface. I found one and stood amazed before it. I was much darker than before, and I almost didn't recognize myself. My blue eyes seemed to look back at me mockingly. My light brown hair was peeking out from underneath my cap, and my face was thinner. I had to look at my reflection a long time before I could be convinced it was actually me.

Then I smiled suddenly. No one could recognize me, recognize where I came from! Suddenly I felt a lot safer. I whipped off my cap with my good arm and my hair stood up in all directions. I smiled all the more and did a turnabout face, placed my cap on again, and marched out the door. I was going to start my life again!

I was a bit early – well, a couple hours early, really – so I wandered around London again, refamiliarizing myself to the streets. I even stopped by the Thames, and spent a while there. I sat on the edge of the water, thinking about what has changed since I had been here last. I searched around beneath the bridge, and was rewarded.

"What're you doin' here?" A teenager with red hair and dirty face said belligerently. A smaller boy stood beside him, holding a rock in a clenched fist.

I said, "You don't recognize me, Tom? It's Johnny." I took off my cap and smiled.

"You're not him. Where's Harry, then?" Tom Wiggins dared me.

I lowered my eyes and said quietly, "Harry took to the drink. Want proof I'm Johnny?" He nodded. I smiled and picked a small rock off the ground with my good hand. I launched it at the base of the building over the Thames. It hit where there were already many white marks. I had made those when I was younger, trying to prove that I was a good shot and should be brought to the turf battles.

Tom stared at me and slowly said, "Hey, Johnny, why's you look so different?"

I sat down, my legs out in front of me. "I went to war in Afghanistan. What's goin' on here?"

"Well, this man hired us as his eyes and ears. And he pays us!" Tom smiled with pride and showed me a half-crown. I raised my eyebrows, surprised at the job they had been hired to do.

"So where'd Ollie, Charlie, and Mary end up?" I asked and sadness passed over Tom's face.

"Don't know 'bout Ollie, Charlie went to sea, and Mary went to work at this lady's house down in the Tiger's territory. Can't ever see her."

"Oh, Tom," Tom and Mary were siblings.

Tom asked, "What're you doin' now?"

"I was just headin' over to meet a man about sharing rooms."

Tom squinted at me and asked, "Does he know, or you not goin' to tell him?"

"If he don't find out, I'm not goin' to be the one to tell." I found myself lapsing into the speech I had grown up with after my parents were killed.

"You can't live wit' that big of a secret, Johnny, 'specially not you." He smiled, undoubtedly remembering the one time I had been brought to steal. I just wasn't made to steal.

"You'd be surprised, Tom." I said quietly. I stood up slowly. "I've gotten good at not speakin' much."

He solemnly shook his head and I remembered in a flash where secrets had gotten his parents. He walked out with me, down the edge of the Thames. He was silent, and I was too.

He stopped at the corner, and I shook his hand formally, smiling. He smiled too, and said quietly, "You were always the one to put on airs . . ."

I poked at his side, and hissed, "Was not." He burst out laughing and so did I.

"Well, good luck, Johnny," Tom said and turned back to the kip.

"Same to you," I said to his retreating back.

I made my way slowly to the University. It was still only about eleven in the morning. And as slowly as I walked, it was still only about half past eleven by the time I found my eyes meeting the big doors to the laboratory. I debated for a moment, then shrugged and walked in.

Sherlock Holmes was at the far end of the laboratory and was pouring a reddish liquid into a big glass container over the Bunsen burner. A thick black smoke erupted from the container. "Deuce it!" He cried and then went to the window nearest him to release the smoke. The minute I saw the smoke I hurried to the window closest to me. He didn't seem to know I was there until we met at the middle window, both of us holding handkerchiefs over our noses and mouths and opening the windows with the other hand.

He pointed out the doors of the lab, telling me to leave, and I stared at him for a second and grabbed his sleeve, pulling him out with me. He resisted, but I got him out and shut the doors.

After the deep and hacking coughs subsided from both of our lungs, he said quietly, "So, a good doctor. I hadn't realized there were any."

"You save people, no matter who they are. Were you going to stay in there?"

"I have to see the result."

"Not to the risk of your life!" I grabbed the stethoscope out of my bag and went up to him to listen to his heart and lungs, but he backed away. I grabbed his sleeve again, looked up into his steady gray eyes, and said, "As you said, I am a good doctor. I want to make sure you are okay."

"I'm fine." He pulled his sleeve out of my hand and grasped the door handle.

"Doctor's orders. You have to be checked out before you go back!" I blocked the door from opening with my body.

"You may have left Afghanistan, Watson, but it has not left you, has it." He looked down at me, a slight smile on his thin lips, and my heart jumped. I moved forward, listened to his chest for the second he allowed, and then he pulled away.

"You are fine . . ." I said grudgingly, and pulled open the lab door to see that most of the smoke had dispersed. "You are lucky," I said, turning back to where Holmes had been. I stared for a moment, and then turned to look in the lab. He was already back to his experiment.

Shaking my head, I wondered what I had gotten into.


	4. New Home

**Chapter 3**

While waiting for him to finish his experiment, something to do with the blood test of yesterday, I leaned against a table and went back in time. I remembered when I had spent time in here, for the science part of my classes for becoming a practicing doctor. I had enjoyed it; my partner had been Stamford, who made everything fun. He was just so happy and easy-going, and any mistakes we made, we sometimes fell to laughing even before the class was dismissed. Those had been some of the best years of my life, those spent here at college.

Soon enough, though, the army invaded my thoughts, and I remembered the worst part of the fighting. The battle at Maiwand, where so many had died that the doctors and orderlies were the majority of the ones standing. I had just watched the boys die from the other side that I could have saved, had we not been on a battlefield where amputation was the lifesaver; when a burst of red-hot pain in my shoulder had ended the war for me.

Murray, my orderly, had saved me. He had seen I was down, and had ridden out, where the horse makes a bigger target. I was keeping myself from blacking out from the pain with difficulty, so I wasn't much help getting myself up on the horse. He realized that we were over enemy lines, and he spurred the horse into a gallop, the Ghazis chasing us for what seems like hours.

Finally, I was sent, along with a great train of other wounded men, to the base camp of Peshawar. There I recovered until I got the fever. Those were months of pain and sweat and hovering so close to deaths door that afterwards, I had a new respect for the dying.

Suddenly, I was jerked back to the present by the sensation of eyes on me. Holmes was staring at me, ready to leave. I started, flustered, and looked away from his piercing eyes.

When we reached Number 221B Baker Street, I was relieved that it would rather be like in college, where we would share a living room and there were two bedrooms as well as a sitting room off to the side to the living room. I decided to bring my things tonight, while Holmes was planning on bring his things tomorrow morning.

We parted cheerily enough and I spent some hours organizing my things, finally falling on to bed exhausted. I spent a peaceful night, for once, a long sleep with no former comrades visiting me.

In the morning, I woke a little past dawn, hearing rustles and footsteps in the living room. I didn't think, I grabbed my army pistol and crept to the doorway, opening the door silently, ready to shoot.

"Holmes!" I said explosively, relief and anger in my voice. He whipped around to find himself staring down the barrel of my gun.

As I lowered it, he said conversationally, "Are you a good shot?"

I raised my eyebrows, but said, civilly enough, "Yes. I was in a war. You have to be." I walked past him, my gun at my side, to close the door of our flat.

"Hmmm . . ." Holmes' eyes were back on the book he was holding, and I sank down on the chair beside the dark fireplace with a groan. My shoulder was throbbing in pain, and I imagined I could still feel where the bullet had been lodged in a flight of fancy. My eyes closed and immediately, I was transported back to the heat and sun of India. The brightly colored natives, tanned brown by the sun, the Englishmen on break standing out like albino crows, the fellow doctors, eyes dull with blood and death, and the soldiers, going out to die, but so brave at the end, where the regrets of their short lives come up and meet them. The wives left behind, the mothers who cried when they left, the fathers, so distant but proud of their son defending their country against the rebelling natives of India.

I wrenched open my eyes before the scenes of the battlefield hospital could enter my mind. Again. So I watched Holmes unpack his things, slowly and methodical. He sat cross-legged in front of an old box with what looked like rusty metal objects, papers, and spent ages going through it. I let my eyes rest on his black-clad figure while my mind wandered.

"I'm going out." I said abruptly, getting up after a while, my muscles protesting. I made it to my room without limping, but sat heavily on the side of the bed for a moment. I finally grabbed my cane and walked through the living room, which now looked like a windstorm had hit. I looked back at my new roommate at the door; he hadn't even looked up. I smiled slightly and left, shutting the door quietly.

I went to the address where Stamford had said I could find him, a small apartment building, not unlike the ones I had just divided, but his landlady said he had gone out very early that morning and hadn't come back. I tipped my hat to her in thanks and decided not to leave a message for him.

So I strolled down streets, not really paying attention to where I was going.

By the time I made it back to my new home, I was limping pretty badly, but I managed the steps better than I thought. Holmes was nowhere to be seen, but the living room looked better now than before I had left. I fell asleep in front of the fire almost immediately.

The next thing I knew was a voice in my ear, saying, "Watson! Wake up!" My eyes opened, the men on the battlefield fading to mist, and the screams into nothing. I cursed quietly, wishing my comrades of India would leave me alone so I could have one night of good sleep. I saw an unfamiliar face in front of me, gray eyes and black hair, hawk-like nose and square chin. I sat up straight and felt for my cane. The man, crouching next to the chair, handed me my cane. At the sight of his ink- and chemical-stained hands, I remembered who he was, my new roommate.

"I'm fine." I said quickly, standing up, Holmes backed away and nodded. I nodded back and turned to go to my room. There I sat on the edge of the bed, sighing. Finally I gathered enough strength to lay back and pull the covers over my head.


End file.
